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New resource from Google: "The Mobile Playbook"

I'm sharing this with you because I think we've got work to do to make sure we win with mobile.
Read through this new content from Google called The Mobile Playbook and let's discuss.
www.themobileplaybook.com

Five questions

for your business

Here are five questions every business should address with their mobile strategy. Each section features detailed best practices and extensive examples.

If you have only five minutes, skip directly to the checklist which recaps key recommendations from the playbook.

Action Item Checklist

Use the left and right arrow keys to navigate

Introduction

How does mobile change our value proposition?

How does mobile impact our digital destinations?

Is our organization adapting to mobile?

How should our marketing adapt to mobile?

How can we connect with multi-screening audiences?

Five questions for your business

Introduction

Win Moments That Matter

How does mobile change our value proposition?

The Local Mobile Consumers

Interview

How does mobile impact our digital destinations?

Mobile-optimized websites

Mobile-branded apps

Enable Better Decisions

Is our organization adapting to mobile?

Mobile Accountability and Ownership

Constantly Innovate

How should our marketing adapt to mobile?

Search Strategy

The Full Value of Mobile

Mobile for Brand Building

Marketing Channels

How can we connect to our tablet audience?

Tablet Strategy

Action Items

Additional Resources

00. Introduction

Mobile changes everything

Last year, Google published the 1st edition of “The Mobile Playbook: The Busy Executive’s Guide to Winning with Mobile”. Based on the hundreds of conversations we had with businesses at the time, we saw that most of their questions weren’t around ‘why I should invest in mobile’ but ‘how I should invest in mobile’. We originally created the playbook to help executives find answers to those questions and help them take action in mobile.

Most of their questions weren’t around ‘why I should invest in mobile’ but ‘how I should invest in mobile’.

Since then, we’ve seen even more urgency around these questions as businesses start to see most of their growth coming from mobile. While most acknowledge that mobile is now an imperative, many are still unsure of how to operationalize it for their businesses. Greg Stuart, CEO of the Mobile Marketing Association, acknowledges that most CMOs are embracing mobile, “but there’s a knowing versus doing gap. They know they need to do it, but how do they do it?”1 A recent IBM report backs up the knowing-doing gap, citing that the vast majority of marketing leaders recognize the importance of mobile, but only two-thirds feel they have a strong understanding of the mobile user experience.2

We are regularly asked for specific recommendations and best practices around mobile. As a result, we’re excited to bring you the 2nd edition of the playbook, complete with updated strategies, new examples of leaders getting it right in mobile, and a prescriptive list of actions to help you win in mobile. While you’ll find that most of the key recommendations are largely in place from the 1st edition, we’ve updated the whole playbook with new examples, and added exclusive deep-dives from industry leaders on topics such as organizational approaches, local mobile marketing and showrooming strategies.

At Google, we believe that now is the time to close that knowing versus doing gap. It is time to take action and not just do mobile, but do mobile right.

Chapter 01

How does mobile change our value proposition?

The mobile consumer

More people than ever are living their lives on multiple screens. Smartphone ownership continues to expand as ever more affordable devices and data plans hit the market. Over the past two years, smartphone adoption in the US has grown from 36% to 61%.3 And tablet owners, typically associated with high disposable incomes, represent an increasingly mainstream demographic as manufacturers introduce a slew of more economically priced models.

As a result, consumers can now use smartphones, tablets and computers to interact with businesses 24/7, from anywhere—at home, at work, on a bus. Powered especially by the rise in smartphone adoption, this constant connectivity has created many more opportunities for marketers to connect with consumers.

Companies have taken notice and begun embracing this always-on behavior, building businesses that lead with mobile and disrupt entire industries. Among these companies are Waze and Uber, with on-the-go navigation; Postmates, Hotel Tonight, and Scoutmob, with last minute, around the corner bookings; GrubHub, with food delivery; and RunKeeper and MyFitnessPal, with on-the-go fitness solutions.

Waze saves drivers time and money by crowdsourcing information on traffic accidents and gas prices. The app boasts 48 million users, 2x year over year growth, and 1 billion miles driven per month with the app open.4

Uber

Uber helps you book an on-demand private driver in close to 40 global markets.5 Your credit card information is stored in the app, which means that payments are carried out on your phone quickly and seamlessly.

HotelTonight

HotelTonight offers last-minute deals on unsold hotel rooms, with discounts up to 70%. The app is now available in markets all over the US as well as in over 10 countries.6

Postmates

Postmates is available 16 hours a day, 7 days a week to deliver breakfast, lunch, dinner, office supplies, gifts, and more—to your door—often in less than an hour. Customers can choose from among 20,000 products sold in over three thousand stores, but they only have two ordering options—mobile phones and tablets.7

Scoutmob

Scoutmob connects people with local deals for food and happenings around their city. The app uses location as a signal for which deals to display in the app, and lets users filter deals based on type of cuisine, location, top rated, and most popular deals.

GrubHub

GrubHub connects hungry people with delivery and take out restaurants across their city. People can place an order without picking up a phone, and credit card information is stored in the app, so payment is seamless. The app also inspires loyalty by giving people the chance to score free food or drinks after every few orders.

Runkeeper

Over 14 million runners use RunKeeper to keep track of workouts and get detailed information on pace, distance, time and route for any given run.8 In addition to basic stats, runners can set goals and measure progress over time, as well as share photos, activities, and achievements on various social networks.

MyFitnessPal

MyFitnessPal is a mobile and online calorie tracker. The app has a vast database of two million foods and restaurant items, so users always can find a match for what they're eating.9 The app and web app have a two-way sync, so the app is up-to-date no matter what platform users are on.

Powered especially by the rise in smartphone adoption, this constant connectivity has created many more opportunities for marketers to connect with consumers.

Serving the mobile consumer

In addition to these mobile-first upstarts, all brands need to think deeply about what it means to serve mobile customers. The temptation to adapt a desktop strategy to fit mobile can be strong, but should be avoided. As John Caine, Chief Product Officer at Priceline, asks: “Why would we ever build a mobile product that caters to the same needs of the desktop user?”10

Here are some examples of brands that have thought deeply about what their consumers want from mobile and have proceeded to deliver it.

UNDERSTANDING MOBILE CONSUMERS

understanding mobile consumers

CLICK TO SEE EXAMPLES BYHome Depot, Delta Airlines, Chase, State Farm

Home Depot

Home Depot’s mobile app allows users to access real-time store inventory and pricing as well as aisle location for merchandise in any given Home Depot store. The app also allows customers to buy on mobile and pick up in store, saving on-the-go customers valuable time.

Delta Airlines

Delta Airlines, understands that travel can be complex, but believes its digital platform doesn’t have to be. The airline built a multi-screen experience from the ground up that took into consideration every step in a customer’s journey from planning, to booking, to check-in, to the flight, to arrival. Delta’s mobile app doubles as a boarding pass, while its tablet app allows travelers to download content for a flight, learn more about their destination, and discover new destinations. Its airport kiosks have even been redesigned to integrate design aspects from the company’s apps and make check-in faster.

State Farm insurance and banking customers can use the State Farm app to find an agent, submit a claim, make bank deposits or transfers, and more. The app also has functionality for non-customers including the ability to document an accident or locate a rental car.

Why would we ever build a mobile product that caters to those same needs of the desktop user?

John Caine

Chief Product Officer at Priceline

In-Depth with

Corcoran Group

Here’s how one company has not only refined their value proposition, but expanded it, after considering its customers’ mobile needs.

Matthew Shadbolt

Director of Interactive Product & Marketing

Matthew Shadbolt is the Director Of Interactive Product and Marketing for The Corcoran Group, New York's premier real estate brokerage with over 2,000 agents specializing in homes for sale or rent in Manhattan, Brooklyn, The Hamptons, and Palm Beach.

Shadbolt has spent over seven years with Corcoran, during which time the firm’s online audience has more than quadrupled. In a recent conversation with Shadbolt, the marketing veteran shared with us how Corcoran leverages social, local, and mobile strategies to develop a long-term relationship with buyers and renters across all stages of the real estate decision making process.

Moving beyond four walls

Corcoran saw that just-the-facts real estate information was becoming commoditized and sought to differentiate itself in the market. Corcoran agents knew that buying or renting an apartment was as much an emotional process as it was a rational one, and that people wanted to understand not only a property’s specifications and amenities, but also where they were going to get their groceries and send their kids to school.

The firm used this knowledge to come up with what it calls the “beyond the four walls” strategy. Corcoran’s goal is to expand its focus beyond traditional real estate listings to become a trusted local guide, connecting with home buyers even before they are in the market for a new home. By doing so, the firm hopes to be top of mind when consumers do enter the market for their next home.

Corcoran’s goal is to expand its focus beyond traditional real estate listings to become a trusted local guide, connecting with home buyers even before they are in the market for a new home.

Transforming into a go-to source for local content

The firm also aims to engage with future clients well before they’re ready to rent or buy. In order to do this, Corcoran leverages its agents’ extensive knowledge of New York to build a comprehensive database of local tips and recommendations. The firm posts this information on numerous social media outlets where people can get to know the Corcoran brand by experiencing the firm’s insider tips, restaurant recommendations, and video interviews. In doing this, the firm has become a go-to source for local information in New York City.

“If we can be relevant and helpful, insightful, and most of all, fun even before people are seriously looking for a new home, what happens is that we get disproportionate mindshare by the time they are ready to rent or buy,” says Shadbolt.

Mobile makes local possible

Mobile has made it possible to get location-specific information on-the-go and altered users expectations when it comes to searching for a home. “Home buyers and renters are searching for information when and where they need it,” said Shadbolt. “When they are viewing a home, they are already searching for restaurants, shops, and schools nearby. What we are doing streamlines and builds on what is already happening, making both the discovery and research process better from start to finish.”

Corcoran have a "beyond four walls" strategy

Beyond location, Shadbolt also uses environmental cues to add context to what his team is sharing. He says, “During New York’s first snow of the year, we can automatically post a list of our best hot chocolate recommendations to our social media outlets. During summer heat waves, we can post a YouTube video with tips on how to stay cool. Using environmental triggers ensures that the information we share is always useful and timely.”

Using environmental triggers ensures that the information we share is always useful and timely.

Mobile ads amplify social and local efforts

To complement the firm’s social, local, and mobile efforts, the firm also runs mobile ads that leverage proximity and time of day to get people into open houses. “If there’s a potential client on 23rd Street getting a coffee, we want to reach out to her to tell her that there’s an open house listing three blocks away that starts in 30 minutes,” says Shadbolt. The firm’s ads are hyperlocal and time-targeted and are intended to get people to take action in the moment. He adds, “In New York’s competitive real estate market, an apartment can go on and off the market in 45 minutes. This means access to real-time information is crucial.”

Identify what mobile consumers need the most when they interact with your business. Focus your value proposition around those essential, mobile-centric use cases.

If there’s a potential client on 23rd street getting a coffee, we want to reach out to her to tell her that there’s an open house listing three blocks away that starts in 30 minutes.

Matthew Shadbolt

Director of Interactive Product & Marketing

The local mobile consumer

Your future customers are literally around the corner, and mobile can get them in your door. One out of five searches—whether on Google.com, Google Maps, Google+, or Zagat—have local intent.12

InterContinental Hotels mobile business driven by local, last minute bookings

Results of local searches

94

of smartphone users search for location info13

51

visited a store13

48

called a store13

29

made a purchase in-store and did so quickly13

Retailers are waking up to the power of capturing mobile demand. A recent Digby analysis indicates that 70% of top retailers now offer mobile apps. Further research indicates that 78% of fast food chains, 75% of casual dining brands, 77% of big box retailers, 59% of specialty stores, and 58% of grocery stores have mobile apps.15

Here are examples of companies that are capturing local demand to grow their businesses.

LOCAL MOBILE EXAMPLES

local mobile examples

CLICK TO SEE EXAMPLES BYIHG, OpenTable, Trulia, RetailMeNot, Google

IHG

Mobile currently represents 30%16 of the InterContinental Hotels Group’s (IHG) online traffic with mobile alone accounting for $330 million in revenue in 2012.17 IHG expects its mobile revenue to continue strong thanks in large part to on-the-go local bookings. Over 60% of mobile bookings on IHG’s mobile channels occur within 48 hours of the hotel stay, whereas less than 30% of PC bookings occur within the same period.18

OpenTable

OpenTable’s largest area of growth in the past year has been mobile. As of late 2012, mobile comprised 32% of the company’s North American reservations. Mobile bookings also grew 170% in the third quarter of 2012 compared to the year before.19

Trulia

Trulia’s mobile traffic is growing at a rate of 130% year-over-year, and the company now employs more mobile engineers than web engineers. The company has seen that one-third of weekend usage is on mobile, and that nearly all rental searches are done on mobile. The company’s mobile audience is monetized at a 25% higher rate than that of its web audience.20

RetailMeNot

The RetailMeNot coupons app has been downloaded more than 1.7 million times. The company saw web traffic increase by 39% year-over-year during the holiday weekend from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday in 2012. Mobile traffic for the same weekend increased by more than 150% year-over-year.21

Google

Google Now aims to give you the right information at just the right time—before you even ask for it. The app gives you the location of nearby places and attractions, up-to-date weather forecasts, restaurant reservations, public transit information, and more.

The price transparency challenge

Price transparency is pervasive in today’s retail environments. 80% of smartphone users use mobile phones for shopping research, and 80% of those shoppers do their mobile research in store.22 39% of walk-outs, when shoppers leave without making a purchase, were also influenced by smartphone usage.23

The usage of mobile phones in stores has led to the phenomenon of “showrooming,” which turns brick and mortar stores into showrooms for products which are then purchased online or via mobile. No retailer is entirely immune to its effects. Every company from PetSmart to Bed Bath & Beyond to Costco is at risk.

The usage of mobile phones in stores has led to the phenomenon of “showrooming,” which turns brick and mortar stores into showrooms for products which are then purchased online or via mobile.

While many businesses fear that showrooming is a major threat to their business, retailers should approach showrooming as an opportunity. We’ve seen five strategies work very well in a retail setting.

Five strategies

Build your own digital relationship with the in-store customer

Retailers know that showrooming starts in a store, so many of them are engaging with customers while they’re shopping. Sprint has won a J.D. Power award for its in-store experience, thanks largely to its ability to connect with customers. “ReadyNow,” the company’s branded retail strategy emphasizes spending time with customers in-store to answer questions and setup their devices to ensure they get the most out of it. With the advent of mobile, Sprint is building on its ReadyNow strategy to further strengthen its digital relationship with customers.

Our showrooming defense is actually more offensive than defensive. We’ve always been very focused on the retail experience. Now we are focused on layering on digital experiences that will make it even better.

Scott Zalaznik

VP of Digital at Sprint

Realizing that in-store customers often had more product information in the form of online ratings and reviews than store staff did, Sprint launched several in-store enhancements. The company began including QR codes on shelf placards that surfaced useful product info such as CNET ratings and reviews that customers could easily access while browsing or speaking with an in-store representative. These mobile-optimized web pages receive thousands of in-store impressions per month. More recently, the company has launched a tablet and mobile-optimized plan configuration tool that in-store staff can use to help customers select the right mobile phone and associated plan for them.

In addition to better answering customer questions about using mobile, Sprint has made it a priority to offer customers the option of buying online via mobile or desktop and then picking up in-store. The initiative allows customers to buy where and when they want at the same price, and still benefit from the best-in-class experience Sprint offers in-store. To make the in-store pickup process even better, the company plans to roll out digital kiosks and tablet solutions that will allow a customer to more easily pick up a phone they’ve already ordered when they arrive at the store.

“Our showrooming defense is actually more offensive than defensive,” said Scott Zalaznik, VP of Digital at Sprint. “We’ve always been very focused on the retail experience. Now we are focused on layering on digital experiences that will make it even better.”

Build policy and train your associates on areas like dealing with price requests from showrooming

It is important to establish a company policy around how to handle price matching requests. Once established, it’s equally important that retail staff understand the policy and have the tools to implement it.

It is important to establish a company policy around how to handle price matching requests.

Best Buy strongly believes that once customers are in your store, they are yours to lose. CEO Hubert Joly says he loves being the “Internet’s Showroom,” and that having customers in his stores is a huge opportunity. Over the 2012 holiday season, Best Buy ran a pilot price matching program within 50 stores, arming specially trained sales reps with tablets that could be used to search comparison sites for the lowest price available.24 Sales reps were then empowered to match the lowest option to complete the sale. If an item was not currently available in-store, then a rep could help a customer complete the sale online. In February 2013, the company rolled out a permanent price matching policy based on the results of the pilot, offering to match local retailers’ prices as well as those of 19 online retailers including Amazon.com and Walmart.com.25

Target offers a price match guarantee as part of its “shop with confidence” policy, which features a more generous return policy and additional 5% savings for Target REDcard holders. Customers that find a lower price on select websites including Amazon.com, Walmart.com, BestBuy.com, ToysRUs.com, and BabiesRUs.com, can request a price match within one week of purchase.

Refine your value proposition for the showrooming consumer

Some stores are rolling out features that match digital switch-pitches such as offering same day delivery, in-store pickup, showing in-stock items within the store, and free online shipping when an item is out-of-stock. To prevent losing out on orders for out-of-stock items, Kmart launched the "Ship My Pants" campaign, which reminds customers that if they can't find what they're looking for in-store, a sales associate can find it on Kmart.com and ship it to them for free.

Press the Play Button to watch the Kmart "Ship My Pants" TV spot

Nordstrom has taken the unprecedented step of merging its online and in-store inventory, displaying inventory from warehouses and physical stores together online. Customers can either pick-up items in-store or request delivery (for free). Merging inventory has turned physical stores into an even stronger asset, ensuring the company is nearly always able to meet requests for particular items.26

Walmart’s free “Pickup Today” service allows customers to order online and pickup in-store later that day. Customers receive an email or text message alert when their items are ready for pickup, turning Walmart locations into an extension of the company’s online presence.

Reward the in-store shopper and improve in-store experience

By making the in-store experience more engaging, financially rewarding, or both, retailers can secure an edge against online-only counterparts.

Target offered free in-store WiFi to its customers over the 2012 holiday season. The store’s Internet service gives customers better access to its mobile app, and helps shoppers redeem mobile coupons and scan QR codes throughout the store.

CVS ExtraCare cards allow shoppers to earn credit in the form of cash and coupons for in-store purchases. In addition to the physical version of the card, CVS shoppers can now create a virtual card that they can save to the CVS mobile app.

Office Depot is rolling out mobile point of sale (POS) to all of its stores this summer, allowing customers to check out anywhere within the store using a credit or debit card, and avoid waiting in line. Mobile POS devices will also allow staff to look up product information online and place online orders in addition to completing in-store transactions.27

Macy's Black Friday app

In preparation for Black Friday 2012, Macy's and eBay created a cutting-edge mobile app experience for holiday shoppers. In addition to the ability to create shopping lists and receive special deal announcements, users of the location-aware app could receive Black Friday deal notifications as they entered a Macy's store as well as every five minutes afterward as long as they remained in the store.

Consider unique items to prevent price comparison

Retailers most susceptible to the effects of showrooming are those whose stock is identical to items available online. To differentiate in-store offerings, retailers are turning to private label brands, exclusive partnerships, and limited-release items.

Macy’s combats showrooming by offering unique items. Fifty percent of the store’s inventory is comprised of Macy’s private labels, exclusive brands, and other proprietary products that are only available in Macy’s locations.28

Target has publicized its goal of expanding the number of exclusive product lines it develops with partners. One area the company has seen particular success is with music exclusives. Recently, Target partnered with Justin Timberlake as the exclusive source for the deluxe edition of his first release in six years, “The 20/20 Experience". Upon release, Target was the second largest source of album sales after iTunes and the album was one of Target’s top-three best selling albums of the last decade.29

Target's partnership with Justin Timberlake

To give you an even deeper look at these strategies, we spoke with two retail veterans who shared with us how they’ve put them to work.

In-Depth with

Michael Scharff

Michael Scharff

Retail Executive

We recently sat down to chat with Michael Scharff, a marketing executive with over 25 years experience leading digital and mobile strategies at retailers such as Toys”R”Us and Best Buy. He shared some forward-thinking strategies around showrooming and explained, “You can’t beat showrooming with just one approach. You need to come at the problem from multiple angles at once. For retailers, this can mean creating a differentiated in-store experience, designing a price matching program that respects your margins, and offering exclusivity in your product lines.”

By helping in-store shoppers get the help they need to find what they are looking for, companies can keep customers visiting stores and buying there.

Here’s a closer look at how Scharff has seen these strategies put to work.

A differentiated in-store experience

One way to create a value-added in-store experience is by offering a robust menu of services that are only available at a company’s physical stores. Some of these services may be directly related to shopping such as registry consultations, personal shopping, or item assembly, while others may be more educational in nature such as parenting classes for moms and dads-to-be. By helping in-store shoppers get the help they need to find what they are looking for, companies can keep customers visiting stores and buying there.

Also key is constant experimentation with in-store offerings to understand what works well for customers. “In particular, I’m interested in experimenting with ways to build a digital relationship with customers while they are in a store,” said Scharff. One tactic that Scharff implemented was the placement of a six-foot touch-screen display in-store equipped with a “gift finder” app. Shoppers could walk up to the display, use the app to find a gift, and then buy that gift in-store. “It was just one display in a 60,000 ft2 store,” Scharff says, “But the percentage of people who stopped by and engaged with it was really high.”

Selective price matching

The pressure of online price matching can hurt retailers’ bottom lines. It is therefore extremely important for retailers to find a way to match online prices that works for both them and their customers. Instead of matching online prices for all items, it makes more sense to apply an online price guarantee for those items most prone to showrooming. By setting aside select products as “loss leaders,” companies can avoid having to expose all of their inventory to price matching. Combined with high-end house brands, this selective approach to price guarantees allows a retailer to maintain margins and keep consumers from switching based on price.

Exclusivity as a way to prevent price comparison

Companies should strongly consider building up their inventory of private label products, especially higher-end brands that can command a price premium. By offering high-end house brands, the company is not only able to offer customers more choices when shopping online or in-store, but also command higher margins that help to offset losses from price match guarantee items. And because many of these items are exclusive to the company, price comparison is more difficult.

Lastly, retailers that maintain strong ties to manufacturers can often secure full or partial exclusivity deals (like early access to products) in exchange for premium store placement and advertising. “It is important to be consistently investing in your relationship with OEMs so you can offer in-store exclusives,” says Scharff.

You can't beat showrooming with just one approach. You need to come at the problem from multiple angles at once.

Michael Scharff

Retail Executive

In-Depth with

Walgreens

Abhi Dhar

GVP and Chief TechnologyOfficer of eCommerce

Walgreens is the largest drugstore chain in the United States with over 8,000 locations in all 50 states. The drugstore has been a leader in thinking about how to meet the needs of its mobile customers—both those shopping in and away from the store. Walgreens’ GVP and Chief Technology Officer of eCommerce is Abhi Dhar, and with the growth of mobile, his job is increasingly focused on building mobile technology that strengthens connections between customers and the Walgreens brand. We recently had a chance to meet with Dhar to hear his thoughts on how to best connect with mobile customers.

For Dhar, strengthening the connection between the brand and the shopper while she is in-store has been critical. Of the 14MM visits across all properties per week, 50% are from mobile devices. In-store, almost 50% of customers that have downloaded the Walgreens app have used it while shopping at one of their locations.30

Visits from mobile

50

of their daily digital visits are from mobile devices30

50

of those mobile visits occur while customers are in a Walgreens store30

Dhar shared: “We are focused on elevating the in-store experience with mobile and building stronger connections between our customers, the Walgreens brand and our stores. What we want to do is to create technology that makes it easy for mobile consumers to interact with our stores and shop with us as easily as possible.”

Building a digital relationship with the in-store customer

Walgreens knows that many customers visit its stores for prescriptions, so the company launched several mobile improvements to the prescription ordering and refilling process. Customers can now opt-in to receive text messages when a prescription needs to be reordered. Once a customer has opted into the program, they need only reply to a text message to initiate a refill. They can also refill prescriptions by scanning their prescription’s bar code within the Walgreens app. Both of these options speed up the prescription process and make for a seamless in-store experience.

“These days, most consumers prefer text messages, so we created an SMS system to reach out to them.” Dhar shared. “And customers are really using the mobile refill feature. Between 2011 and 2012, we doubled our mobile app downloads, and today 52% of digital refills come from mobile phones, which translates roughly into one mobile refill per second.”31

Photos are another huge business for Walgreens. Knowing that many customers’ phones are now also their primary camera, the company developed two mobile photo printing services to bridge the mobile and physical worlds. “QuickPrints” allows customers to print photos from their cameras’ photo gallery and social networks. “PrintWorthy” allows customers to print photos from social network posts along with their associated comments. Both photo services allow for pickup in about an hour at any Walgreens store, making the printing process quick and easy.

Dhar shares, “With more and more customers using their mobile phones as their primary cameras, we wanted to find a way to make it easy for consumers to take those photos that are normally trapped on their phones and make them easy to commemorate as high quality prints.”

What we want to do is create technology that makes it easy for mobile consumers to interact with our stores

Abhi Dhar

GVP and Chief Technology Officer of eCommerce

Walgreens App

Enhancing the in-store experience

One of Walgreens main goals with its mobile apps is to improve the in-store experience by helping customers make shopping trips as efficient as possible. Knowing that 20% of sales are lost in-store when a customer can’t find an item, Walgreens provides customers with detailed store maps for all of its locations and the ability to locate a specific item that’s been added to a shopping list.32 Customers also can scan product prices within the store, using the app’s camera-based price scanner.

20% of sales are lost in-store when a customer can't find an item

For busy shoppers, Walgreens has created “Web Pickup”, a service that allows customers to shop from their phones and pay for their order through the app. A Walgreens employee puts the order together and has it ready for the customer upon store arrival. Select Web Pickup locations even offer curbside pickup, where a Walgreens team member will bring an order to a customer’s car.

Rewarding the in-store shopper

Offers are an integral part of Walgreens' business model, so the retailer leverages mobile to extend the reach of its deals. Walgreens mobile app users can receive coupons that can be redeemed in store, online, or both. The company offers a digitized version of its weekly print circular so that it’s available on mobile. For example, if a customer is at the doctor’s office and doesn’t have the circular with them, he could use his mobile phone to look up the weekly ad and begin planning his trip to the store.

The company’s Balance Rewards program is also available on mobile. Customers can track points and account activity via their mobile phone, enabling them to carry one less piece of plastic.

Dhar says, “Our goal with everything we do on mobile is to make our customers’ lives easier. If our customers can focus on getting the items they need without having to search for their rewards card or wander down multiple aisles to find their last item, then we’re doing something right.”

Now that you’ve thought about how to evolve your value proposition, the next step is to consider mobile’s impact on your company’s digital footprint.

Chapter 02

How does mobile impact our digital destinations?

A common question we hear when speaking with clients is: “Should I create a mobile website or a mobile app for my brand?” Our answer often times is “both” because each caters to a different type of customer. An app is essentially a bookmark for loyal users who’ve invested the energy to download your app to more easily interact with your brand. A mobile site is for everyone else.

Having just an app is not the same as having a mobile strategy.

While apps can be effective in deepening relationships with loyal customers, the majority of your traffic will likely come from the web. And while apps must be designed for specific platforms, a mobile website is accessible by users across all screens. In other words, having just an app is not the same as having a mobile strategy.

If you have to prioritize between an app and a mobile site, your first priority should be creating a mobile-optimized website. Once your site is live, you can then launch a mobile app for your power users. Whatever the touchpoint, creating a great mobile experience for your users is key. Fifty-seven percent of users say they won’t recommend a business with a poorly-designed mobile site, and 40% have turned to a competitor’s site after a bad mobile experience.33

Experiences on mobile

57

of users say they won’t recommend a business with a poorly designed mobile site33

40

have turned to a competitor’s site after a bad mobile experience33

Your #1 priority is to build a mobile website.

Mobile-optimized websites

Tailor your experience, don't cripple it. Customers will want to see a tailored experience based on the device they use—but they still want a complete experience. Make sure to design for mobile, rather than simply taking content from your desktop site and making it fit on a mobile screen.

Designing for mobile requires taking a step back and re-considering the whole experience from the mobile user’s mindset and needs. Your mobile site will differ from your desktop site not just because of the size of the device, but because the mobile context reveals a different mindset for your consumers. Visitors to your mobile site may be at a different point in the purchase funnel. How does your site appear to mobile users? Are you making it easy for them to connect with you or are you putting obstacles between them and what they seek?

Consider the typical browsing experience from a personal computer: people are often seated in a comfortable position in front of a 10” to 15” screen, have a trackpad or mouse, and often have a full keyboard to type out complex searches or fill out longer forms. Contrast this with someone browsing content from a smartphone: people might very well be on-the-go, they are using 4” to 6” screens, and they usually have just one free hand to navigate screens much less input text.

As a result, mobile-friendly experiences typically feature very simplified navigation, quick-to-load images, and streamlined text. Many successful mobile sites reduce or eliminate the need for scrolling or typing, and may have large “touch targets” for clicking that take into account the lack of precision on a touch screen.

www.google.com/think/multiscreenFor more detailed advice on building experiences that work across multiple devices—especially on smartphones, check out Google’s Think Insights page on multi-screen design. Learn how to define your multi-screen strategy, how to avoid the most common pitfalls in mobile site design, how to test your current site’s mobile setup, and see different implementation options.

Here are some initial steps you can take to define your mobile site strategy.

Understand how customers currently interact with your site

Analyze the traffic on your website and get an understanding of where your customers come from. You can learn at what times people visit your site, what types of content they consume, and when they use smartphones versus tablets and computers.

Adapt your value proposition to customer needs

An analysis of your current website might give you hints—e.g. what a smartphone user is looking for versus a visitor on a computer or a tablet. You might learn that prioritizing specific content on the mobile-friendly version of your website will improve conversion rates and drive incremental revenue for your business. The goal here is to tailor and rearrange content for specific audiences rather than removing it and offering a stripped down version of your website.

Study examples across and beyond your industry

Take time to explore mobile sites of competitors or those of leading companies in other industries. Having a broad repository of examples to reference might spur new ideas on design and functional elements that could enhance your mobile site.

Gucci's mobile-optimized site increased mobile conversions by 70%

Evaluate which implementation option works best for you

There are now three ways you can implement mobile websites. Each of these can perform well in search results, however one option may work better than the others depending on the chosen configuration of your site.

Have your webmaster or agency evaluate the pros and cons for each option.

Responsive web design

Responsive web design (RWD) enables you to optimize your site experience across different screen sizes without creating multiple websites.

Dynamically serving different HTML on the same URL

When a customer visits your website, it’s possible for your web server to detect what kind of device they are on and present a custom page on the same URL.

Separate mobile URLs

Another option to customize your site experience based on device type is to simply build a separate site for mobile traffic that is independent of your original desktop site. The browser detects if visitors are on a mobile device and redirects them to the mobile-optimized version of your site (e.g. mobile.nytimes.com).

No matter which implementation option you choose, how you configure your site also matters. From an SEO perspective, websites without easy-to-use mobile versions may fall in search rankings, making it more difficult for your customers to find you. The most common mistakes involve sending mobile users to invalid or irrelevant pages or embedding inaccessible content within mobile pages such as a Flash content, which isn’t supported by all mobile devices. By keeping the mobile needs of your customers front and center throughout the design process and continuing to test and optimize the experience after launch, many of these mistakes can be avoided.

Don’t forget about analytics during the design process

Make sure you tag your mobile site appropriately to track all the ways that your customer might choose to do business with you, whether it be looking up nearby stores, contacting you via click-to-call, or downloading your app. We’ll discuss mobile paths to purchase in more detail when we discuss how your marketing should adapt to mobile in Chapter 4.

Here are some brands that have carefully thought about the mobile experience and created great mobile sites that have driven powerful results.

Gucci decided to build a mobile website in December 2012 after they noticed a steady increase in mobile purchases. The fashion brand’s landing page allows you to browse through a number of fashion magazine-style images, while a top bar pulls down to reveal product categories and a shopping cart. Gucci removed all unnecessary words and buttons, and optimized the check out flow so that it only takes a few seconds. Since Gucci launched its mobile site, mobile conversions have increased by over 70%, and mobile revenue has grown almost four times year-over-year. Gucci’s mobile site now accounts for 27% of total traffic and 13% of total revenue.34

Timberland

Timberland’s mobile website features major category labels such as “Men”, “Women”, “Kids”, and “Sale” to help users navigate through the company’s products. The site also has rotating product images at the top and bottom of the page, so that users can start to shop even before they click. Lastly, the search bar and shopping cart are featured at the top of the screen on every page, making it easy for customers to research and buy multiple products in a single shopping session. Since the launch of Timberland’s mobile site, mobile sales have grown 20 times faster than desktop site sales.35

FragranceNet

FragranceNet chose to build its mobile website after it saw an exponential increase in mobile web traffic that wasn’t matched with an increase in mobile conversions. The company mobile optimized its site by featuring large product images and font sizes as well as a made-for-mobile checkout flow. Four months after the site launched, FragranceNet’s percentage of sales on mobile increased by 48%.36

RadioShack

RadioShack has retail outlets within five miles of 90% of the US population. In order to bring mobile users into stores, RadioShack developed a mobile site that includes a touch-optimized store locator with click-to-call and GPS functionality. Since deploying its mobile site, RadioShack’s average mobile order value increased by 30% and cost per conversion on mobile decreased by 5%. The company also believes that 40% to 60% of people who use the store locator on a mobile device end up visiting a store.37

Novartis

“Our patients are digitally savvy and always on the hunt for more information about their condition, treatment, and ways to connect with others. With this in mind, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation set out to create a user-friendly mobile site for one of our products. The mobile site provides an additional way for consumers to access information about treatment, share their message, locate local events, and encourages interaction with the brand's social properties. Traffic has increased exponentially, up almost 600% since the December 2012 launch, and 42% month over month.”38

--Michele Angelaccio, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation

Optimize, optimize, optimize

Even great mobile websites usually have room for improvement. On a regular basis, you should evaluate your site performance and optimize based on what you learn from user interactions.

On a regular basis, you should evaluate your site performance and optimize based on what you learn from user interactions.

The Home Depot launched its first mobile website in May 2010 and has made frequent updates ever since. The company recently carried out a significant mobile redesign that allows users to access store-specific real-time inventory and pricing as well aisle location information for merchandise in any Home Depot store. Shoppers can also buy on mobile and pick up in-store or access over 1,000 how-to videos. Over the past year, The Home Depot’s mobile redesign doubled mobile conversion rates and quadrupled mobile sales.40

Priceline

When Priceline noticed that mobile was starting to drive more traffic to the company’s website than desktop traffic, the company spent four months redesigning its mobile site from the ground up. In addition to an improved current location search, the new site also features simplified content, larger buttons, and a faster, more streamlined checkout flow. After the site launch, Priceline’s unique visitors increased by 13.9%, average time on the site increased by 45%, and page views tripled. In addition, the mobile site’s share of business also grew by 31%.41

Branded mobile apps

Once you’ve built a mobile site, your next step is to start using apps to enrich your relationships with users. Here are the key points to remember when you’re working with a branded app.

Six key points

Offer users entertainment, utility, or both

If your app doesn’t deliver compelling value of one kind or another, its shelf life will be short. Be clear about why you’re building it. Do you want to bring a new type of functionality to your users? Nurture loyalty?

Design your app for the largest mobile platforms

If limited resources demand that you prioritize, design your apps for the mobile platforms that represent the majority of the smartphone installed base. Fish where the fish are.

Consider developing ‘hybrid’ apps that work across smartphones and tablets

Instead of creating separate apps that your users need to download for smartphones and tablets, consider developing a single ‘hybrid’ app that automatically adapts its layout to best fit whichever device is accessing it.

Apps can offer features mobile sites can’t such as notifications, camera integration, and one-click purchasing. Use the added functionality to better serve app users whose expectations and needs will be different than mobile site visitors. Apps that mirror a company’s mobile website or represent a ported mobile website miss out on an opportunity to engage with app users more deeply.

Starbucks' mobile app allows loyalty members to earn points and pay with their phone

Use the added functionality to better serve app users whose expectations and needs will be different than mobile site visitors

developer.android.com/design/index.htmlThe Android design center provides detailed advice on leveraging unique aspects of the Android platform and how to create the best ‘made-for-Android’ app experience. Articles, videos, and ready-to-use elements for download are available to make the design process easy.

Promote your app to grow your user base

Here are some useful tips on doing just that:

Target your existing customers through desktop and mobile site links, client newsletters or other channels you already use to reach them.

Time your promotional efforts to coincide with a PR push to maximize impact.

Think past the install

Maximizing app downloads and app users is a natural first instinct when it comes to app strategies. You should also think past the install and consider how you can actively engage your app user base to drive incremental transactions and sales. This can be addressed in how the app is designed, how you re-market to your app users and engage them over time, and finally how you set up analytics and optimizations related to your app.

To that end here are more guidelines on how you can continue to invest in and maintain your app.

Design

Savvy brands know that an app can be a tool to build stronger relationships with customers in addition to driving sales. As such, they take a very different approach to designing their app than they would their mobile site. Insurance companies such as Allstate offer apps that allow customers to manage their account or receive accident support, whereas their corresponding mobile sites are more focused on how to get a quote or request more information.

Kaiser Permanente is piloting an app in Northern California that allows its patients to manage nearly all aspects of their health in the palm of their hand, from scheduling appointments to viewing medical records. Your app can be an important channel to drive sales, build loyalty, or both.

Measurement

App users typically represent your most loyal customers—don’t ignore them. New remarketing technologies have made it possible to actively engage with your app users by serving targeted ads only to those individuals who have downloaded your app.

To that end, companies should develop their apps to enable ‘deep linking’, which makes it possible for online ads to direct users into deeper, more targeted sections of an app than the homepage. This can be an invaluable tool for engaging with existing app users and immediately driving them to new offers, products, or features that can be accessed or bought within the app.

Consider building an app for your loyal customers especially if it provides compelling utility.Actively promote, manage, analyze, and invest in your app as if it were a dedicated sales or loyalty channel.

Management

Many analytics packages today, including Google Analytics, make it possible to measure app engagement and model lifetime value for app users. In Google Analytics, it is easy to track specific in-app events and assign value to them. Because the value of an app download isn’t the same as that of a single website visit, what you track will also be different. Even if an app user doesn’t make a purchase immediately, the app will remain on a user’s phone for easy access later. We recommend that you select events that are likely to take place within a short time frame, such as 30 days, in order to identify valuable users early on. Include actions that are focused on engagement, such as opening the app or searching within it, in addition to transaction-oriented actions.

Once you know who your most valuable users are, you’ll want to identify which channels they come from. iOS privacy-friendly Identifiers for Advertisers (IDFA) allow advertisers to link activities to their original source, offering an even deeper understanding of user behavior. On Android, referrer tracking is built in if you are using Google Analytics, creating a seamless way to connect in-app activity back to a campaign source.

To not only build your app user base, but nurture it, it’s important to think past the install when designing, managing, and measuring your app

Here are some brands that are doing apps right. These apps are compelling because they effectively service power users and drive brand loyalty and even sales in the process.

Corcoran, New York's premier real estate brokerage, uses the power of local information to make home hunting more efficient and more enjoyable. The company’s mobile app allows buyers and renters to view interactive floorplans, share properties via email and text, and receive push notifications when an apartment that meets certain specifications is listed. “You can tell the app that you want a two bed, two bath rental for a certain price range, and as soon as it hits market, your pocket will buzz with an alert,” says Matthew Shadbolt, Director of Internet Marketing for Corcoran.

In addition, users can create a list of homes they wish to view in-person, and the app will prioritize and map to destinations based on locality, as well as provide restaurant and shopping recommendations along the way. Shadbolt believes the app will help the firm drive additional sales by streamlining the search for a home.

Kaiser

In Northern California, Kaiser is experimenting with mobile apps as a way to comprehensively manage patients and their families by actively building loyalty amongst existing customers. The Kaiser Permanente Preventive Care app allows users to track medical records, get alerts when it is time for routine health screenings, receive appointment reminders, call to make an appointment or reach the advice center, and access health and wellness tips and resources.

Volvo

Volvo’s “On Call” app takes advantage of the capabilities of a native environment to enable drivers to access vehicle features from the palm of their hand. Using the app, drivers can check their fuel level, locate their vehicle, remotely lock their car, manage trip itineraries, request roadside assistance, and even heat the vehicle on a chilly morning.

Starbucks

The Starbucks mobile app focuses on utility as a way to increase both sales and loyalty. Rather than replicate website functionality the app builds on it. The app helps coffee and tea aficionados everywhere find their nearest store, build a virtual drink, find out about coffee varieties, browse food selections, earn loyalty points, and pay with their phone.

Johnson & Johnson

Johnson & Johnson launched a free iPhone and Android app called “Donate a Photo” that allows users to choose a cause, take or select a photo, and then share that photo with friends on social networks. For every share completed through the app, Johnson & Johnson donates $1 to the user’s cause of choice, building goodwill amongst its top customers.

GEICO

GEICO’s "BroStache" app for iPhone and Android is a pure entertainment play. The app allows you to choose from various mouth and mustache images that you can hold in front of your face. The app uses your smartphone’s microphone to sense sound—allowing your virtual mouth to open and close while you speak. For GEICO’s youngest customers, the app will provide an opportunity to connect with the brand and build loyalty.

Oreo

Oreo’s augmented reality game, “Catch the Oreo”, seeks to connect with and entertain Oreo fans in a light-hearted way. The game uses a smartphone’s camera function to bring players’ surroundings into the game using native app features as they attempt to catch as many Oreos as they can in their glass of milk.

Now that you’ve determined how you can adapt your value proposition for the mobile consumer and bring it to life in a mobile website and app, aligning your organization around mobile will help you enable better decisions to promote the growth of your business.

Chapter 03

Is our organization adapting to mobile?

Mobile accountability and collaboration

Our next question is a simple one. Who exactly holds the mobile mantle in your company? Does your team have a sufficient sense of urgency around the topic? How do you ensure mobile is a consideration for all of your teams?

Assign a mobile champion in your company

Our recommendation, at its most basic level, is a simple one: we encourage the appointment of a Mobile Champion within your organization. How this champion is set up in the company will vary depending on the state of mobile within your business. For organizations where mobile represents a small, but fast growing segment of the business, a centralized team dedicated to mobile is likely the best structure to help drive the company through early growth opportunities. For organizations where mobile already represents a significant share of the business, we’ve seen teams successfully pivot to a more decentralized footprint of mobile expertise, with mobile leaders being distributed across each and every group to maintain mobile growth.

We encourage the appointment of a Mobile Champion within your organization.

Empower the mobile champion with a cross-functional task force

Whether the mobile champion’s team is centralized or distributed throughout the company, the champion needs full support from leadership in building a cross-functional task force. This task force will likely need to be far-reaching, as mobile can materially impact functions such as merchandising, sales, IT, and even human resources. Consider a company like Best Buy. The merchandising team must think carefully about which products to put in stores knowing that customers can easily compare prices on their phones. The sales team must think through how to build a relationship with the customer both in person and via their mobile device. Human resources must train store employees on how to react to shoppers finding better prices on their phones. And IT will need to be savvy in building mobile sites and ways to improve the digital in-store experience such as installing WiFi to enable easy online access to product information.

Mobile can materially impact functions such as merchandising, sales, IT, and even human resources.

Cross-functional alignment is especially key when it comes to sales compensation and incentive models. Mobile is a source of traffic and sales for physical stores. Mobile is a source of leads for the call center. Mobile is driving traffic to franchisees. Because of its particular ability to drive multi-channel sales, mobile is shaking up how companies think about attribution between teams. One of our clients explained that its call center team got credit for calls driven from the mobile site, but the Internet marketing team only got credit for form fill leads. Click-to-call may drive mobile orders, but how many opportunities are missed if the Internet marketing team isn’t rewarded? CMOs and CFOs who understand mobile’s impact on their physical channels are building the right incentive models that minimize channel conflict and maximize cross-channel sales.

Here are two examples of companies that successfully established mobile champions within their organizations and created strong cross-functional relationships to make the most of the mobile opportunity.

In-Depth with

Sprint

How the role of the mobile champion has evolved at Sprint

Scott Zalaznik

VP of Digital at Sprint

Championing mobile when growth is in its infancy

Sprint provides mobile service to nearly 54 million subscribers and has been a core player in enabling the world’s adoption of mobile.42 But, understanding how mobile impacts the company’s marketing efforts such as customer acquisition and attribution has still required careful thought, analysis, and action. We had a chance to speak with Scott Zalaznik, VP of Digital at Sprint, who shared his perspectives on how Sprint adapted its organization to meet the evolving mobile opportunity over the years.

The core question was whether the company should have a single, centralized group focused on mobile or go with a decentralized approach

When Sprint’s digital marketing team first began building a mobile action plan, the core question was whether the company should have a single, centralized group focused on mobile or go with a decentralized approach, requiring all groups to carve out some form of mobile accountability in their teams. At the time, mobile wasn’t yet mission critical to any single group and the majority of site traffic still originated on the desktop. As a result, the team opted to task a single specialist team with determining and rolling out mobile best practices across the business.

The team was able to think holistically about what mobile meant to the company as well as individual groups, building a plan that took into consideration the company’s website, marketing campaigns, and existing marketing plan. Within months, the team quickly established a mobile HTML5 presence enabled with essential sales and service functionality. The centralized approach paid off, allowing Sprint to maintain focus and momentum in the early stages of its entrance into mobile and grow mobile traffic to around 30% of overall site traffic.43

The team was able to think holistically about what mobile meant to the company

Championing mobile when growth is mature

Given the growing maturity and reach of the mobile side of the business (at one point mobile began to account for 10% of eCommerce sales), Sprint began to reevaluate its initial decision to centralize mobile expertise.43 Realizing that the digital division was entering the next wave of growth, one that would require an all-hands approach rather than a single team, the head of the group chose to disperse specialists throughout the organization in order to accelerate mobile initiatives across the company.

Today, a single team remains dedicated to the mobile channel, but its efforts are amplified by key groups that also have mobile top of mind. “Mobile can’t be off in a corner at this point,” said Zalaznik, “Mobile is equally as important as the desktop and we need to be organized in a way that reflects that.” By allowing its centralized approach to evolve into one where all business units and functions include several mobile champions, the organization has extended its mobile reach even further and ensured that every area of the business that is impacted by mobile has a role in mobile.

Mobile can’t be off in a corner at this point, mobile is equally as important as the desktop and we need to be organized in a way that reflects that.

Scott Zalaznik

VP of Digital at Sprint

Aligning mobile across digital and retail teams

“Mobile has meant that we’ve had to rethink attribution between divisions, especially in how we connect the dots between mobile-assisted store visits and store sales,” said Zalaznik. Internal research indicated 70% of in-store purchases began with some form of online research with a growing portion of that coming from smartphone interactions.43

What might have been a channel conflict years ago, has become a strategic alliance. Retail and digital are working closely together to build on ReadyNow, Sprint’s J.D. Power award-winning in-store experience. Key will be web-to-retail integration, such as the option to buy online and pickup in-store, which will help unify and streamline the online and offline experiences. “Our efforts and broader strategy to integrate our branded channels have really drawn our teams together to think as one,” said Zalaznik.

What might have been a channel conflict years ago, has become a strategic alliance.

Another key aspect of bringing the digital and retail teams together was a clear and simple set of key performance indicators (KPIs) that encouraged cross-channel collaboration. In this case, Sprint measured its digital division on assist metrics, like mobile-driven store visits, while the retail division retained full credit for all in-store sales.

While Sprint’s digital team continues to expand the way it thinks about the role of mobile and mobile attribution, there is no doubt that its ongoing success is due in large part to its ability to answer the questions “What are we doing about mobile?” and “Who is doing it?”

In-Depth with

Horizon Media

How to give mobile a seat at the table and drive growth

Sarah Bachman

Director of Mobile Strategyat Horizon Media

An agency organizes around mobile

At Horizon Media, the world’s largest independent media agency, clients such as GEICO, Capital One, Viacom, and Jack in the Box work closely with account teams that possess a deep understanding of their individual businesses to build and execute against comprehensive strategic marketing plans. To guide the process, account teams consult with media teams that specialize in TV, radio, out-of-home (OOH), social, and digital.

In 2010, recognizing the monumental shift mobile presented to its clients' businesses, Horizon Media introduced a mobile marketing practice. The mobile team’s mandate is to focus on championing mobile within the organization and extending individual clients’ mobile reach. The mobile team is as deeply involved in the implementation and optimization phases of a campaign as it is the planning phase.

“By making mobile a peer to other channels instead of routinely folding the platform under the digital division, we have a seat at the table next to the client and the account team,” said Sarah Bachman, the agency’s Director of Mobile Strategy. “This allows us to be more deeply involved at all stages of a campaign. And that essential seat at the table ensures that mobile isn’t an afterthought during the campaign planning process.”

By making mobile a peer to other channels instead of routinely folding the platform under the digital division, we have a seat at the table next to the client and the account team.

Sarah Bachman

Director of Mobile Strategy at Horizon Media

As a result, Horizon Media has been able to drive larger and more ambitious mobile plans on behalf of clients, leading to a 4x increase in mobile revenues in fewer than three years. To support this growth, the mobile activation team has grown 10 times over in the last 16 months, ensuring the agency is poised to deliver on the increasing complexity and scope of its clients’ mobile needs.44

Assign a Mobile Champion in your company and empower him or her with a cross-functional task force.Centralize mobile accountability if mobile is an emerging but fast growing segment of your business.Distribute mobile accountability as mobile becomes a core segment of your business.

Organizing for mobile

Here are some of the questions that could help your organization upgrade its mobile programs, platforms, and capabilities. Your mobile champion should work closely with a strong cross-functional task force to determine your company’s approach to each of the questions listed below.

Metrics, budgets, incentives

Is mobile a key metric in your management dashboard?

How often do you review your mobile statistics, and who reviews them?

Who knows what percentage of web traffic and search queries come from mobile?

Which decisions would change if key business owners were given timely mobile data?

Do you assign mobile-specific budgets?

How are you handling KPIs and compensation for mobile-to-store sales? Click-to-call sales?

Consumer, market, and competitor insights

Who’s developing consumer insights through focus groups and surveys?

Who’s watching people’s actions on your mobile site and mobile’s inclusion in product launches and campaigns?

What devices do your employees use? What does this mean for how they experience your mobile site and/or app?

Who’s monitoring your competition’s investment in mobile?

Capabilities

Which agencies are you relying on to help you make mobile decisions? Does your agency have mobile expertise?

How does the connected consumer impact training for your store employees?

Does your IT department have mobile expertise?

Where do you recruit mobile and digital marketers?

Should mobility impact your real estate and locations strategy?

Now that you've thought about aligning your organization to win in mobile, how can you adapt your marketing for mobile?

Chapter 04

How should our marketing adapt to mobile?

New marketing contexts

When, where, and how a customer can search for your products has grown exponentially. Mobile devices empower consumers with many new moments for search and discovery, and in turn, many new opportunities for customers to connect with your brand. At Google, we have observed that tablet and computer usage peaks in the evening hours at home. In contrast, mobile usage is spread more evenly throughout the day and thus across many more contexts, whether it’s occurring on-the-go, during working hours, or at home. In fact, while mobile is often associated with on-the-go usage, a recent Nielsen study estimated that 68% of mobile searches actually occur at home where there are other larger screen devices readily available.14 What’s more, new research from over 300 internal Google studies indicates that 88% of clicks on mobile search ads are incremental to organic clicks. In certain industries, this number can be as high as 97%.45

A recent Nielsen study estimated that 68% of mobile searches actually occur at home where there are other larger screen devices readily available

When companies talk about the opportunity mobile presents, often they are referring to the opportunity context presents. A better understanding of context, the specific circumstances in which your customers seek you out, such as time, location, and even proximity, allows your marketing message to be more targeted, meaningful, and successful. Consider two individuals both searching for exactly the same thing: pizza. The first is on a mobile device, searching while out and about downtown at 7:30pm. The second is on a laptop at home at 11:14am. The first is likely looking for a nearby dine-in pizza experience. The second is likely looking for a delivery option at home. Each of these hungry customers will require tailored messaging to most effectively serve them.

When companies talk about the opportunity mobile presents, often they are referring to the opportunity context presents.

Identical searches but different contexts defined by device, time of day and location

Mobile users represent a wide range of contexts across different times of day, location, and proximity. How is your search marketing taking advantage of these signals to deliver more relevant calls-to-action and value propositions?

Understand when, where, and how close your mobile customers are when they’re searching. Use those contextual signals of location, proximity, and time of day to refine your search marketing strategies and calls-to-actions.

New mobile conversions

Mobile has increased the opportunities your customers have to reach out to you or a competitor. In turn, new opportunities have opened for conversion. But, the path to conversion on mobile, due to differing screen size, functionality, and context, isn’t identical to desktop or tablet. A mobile conversion doesn’t necessarily entail filling up an online shopping cart and checking out. It can be a customer searching for store directions, calling your business directly, or visiting in person. It can be an app download that leads to a purchase, or a shopping process that starts on mobile and then finishes on a computer or tablet later in the day.

TripIt increased mobile conversions 75% from its app

3 of 10 mobile searches result in valuable business outcomes...such as a consumer visiting a store, purchasing an item from a mobile website, or calling a business.

We also see that mobile searchers are extremely valuable for the kinds of actions they take as a result of their searches. Nielsen recently published a study on mobile search behaviors, analyzing over 6000 individual mobile searches conducted by a panel of nearly 500 consumers. The study estimated that roughly three in 10 mobile searches result in valuable business outcomes across different channels, such as a consumer visiting a store, purchasing an item from a mobile website, or calling a business.14 And not only are mobile searches likely to yield conversion opportunities for marketers, they’re likely to do so very quickly. According to the study, 50% of purchase-related conversions happened within an hour of the mobile searches that initiated them.14

Leading marketers are aware of mobile’s potential to drive conversions, not just in digital but also across channels such as physical stores and call centers.

Here are examples of companies who are driving conversions across a range of channels using mobile marketing.

When L’Oréal launched a mobile website for haircare brand Redken, the company included a salon locator, a product catalog, and a “look book”. Of these features, L’Oréal was primarily concerned with the mobile salon locator, and with how many people were accessing it from mobile devices. Before optimization, only 3% of salon searches were coming from mobile. However, after optimization, this number rose to 10%. The percentage of mobile salon searches rose even higher—to 23%—after L’Oréal implemented mobile ads.47

Colombo & Hurd

Attorneys at Colombo & Hurd have a singular goal with their paid search campaigns: for potential clients to contact the firm and schedule an in-office consultation. Specifically, phone calls to the firm lasting longer than 180 seconds are considered conversions. A high proportion of the firm’s traffic― 42%―comes from mobile devices, making calls via mobile an important path to conversion for the firm. To get the most out of this important channel, the firm uses AdWords bid adjustment features. These features have allowed the firm to use call extensions to link its business phone number with its ads and create mobile-preferred ads with a mobile-specific call to action for on-the-go searchers. In this case, the firm added the words “Call Now” to ads viewed on mobile phones. Since optimizing around calls as conversions, Colombo & Hurd has raised mobile CTR by 53% and lowered mobile CPC 13.6%.50

The Home Depot

The Home Depot’s mobile site allows customers to browse and buy thousands of items in twenty categories, and also features thousands of video how-to’s. Video content, sometimes perceived as difficult to tie back to sales, has proven popular with the company’s main audience: “Do-it-yourselfers,” who are hungry for content and convenience wherever they are. The company’s efforts to expand content and continually iterate on the user experience have paid off. Mobile conversion rates have doubled and mobile commerce sales have quadrupled between the first and second half of 2012.40

Tripit

TripIt uses AdWords’ mobile app extensions to show smartphone users ads for the company's app when they’re searching on Google.com. By combining these ads with additional mobile ads on the Google Display Network, TripIt increased mobile conversions by more than 75% and slashed cost-per-download (CPD) by more than 96%.51

Myntra

“Companies are nervous in India to spend on mobile, primarily because they see a lot of traffic coming from mobile devices, but they do not see transactions,” says Nitin Bawankule, Industry Director eCommerce, Media and Local Classifieds at Google. Indian retail giant Myntra was one such company. It saw a great deal of traffic on mobile, but that traffic didn’t appear to be converting into transactions. The team hypothesized that mobile was driving cross-device conversions, where users initiated the conversion process on one device and completed it on another. To test the hypothesis, the Myntra team partnered with Google to conduct a test. For 15 days, they spent a nominal amount on AdWords mobile ads, and then for the following 15 days they greatly increased their mobile spend. During the second 15 days, traffic to Myntra’s mobile website increased by 30% and the company's overall (desktop, tablet, and mobile) transactions increased by 7%, revealing the role mobile played in driving cross-device conversions.52

New attribution models for mobile

As a marketer, it is crucial that you start measuring and attributing value to all mobile conversions, not just online commerce orders happening on your mobile site, so you don’t under-invest in mobile.

Let’s take a hypothetical example: Advertiser A invested $600K in mobile advertising. Accounting for mCommerce purchases only, mobile ROI appears negative. However, Advertiser A initially neglected to account for all of the other mobile conversions that are driving value: its $600k investment also drove 20 thousand app downloads, 60K phone calls to their call center, and 100K store locator clicks.

Using internal and external benchmarks, Advertiser A assigned value across all mobile conversions and estimated that each call was worth $3, each app download $5, and each store locator click $2. As a result, Advertiser A found that mobile ads were actually driving a healthy ROI for its business and re-invested accordingly to maintain this competitive edge.

Don’t under-count mobile; go beyond e-commerce conversions on your site and attribute the full value that mobile is driving to other channels, like physical stores, call centers and apps.

Refining attribution models for mobile

Track how users are converting on your mobile site and app in the broadest sense. Tag not only m-commerce sales but also mobile-assisted conversions such as store locator clicks, click-to-calls, app downloads and in-app transactions.

Here are examples of companies that have thought deeply about the full value that mobile was fueling for their businesses and as a result, positioned themselves to invest competitively in mobile.

adidas worked with iProspect to assign value to store locator clicks. They found that 20% of mobile users who clicked on store locator links visited a store. Knowing that 20% of in-store visitors convert with an average order value of $80, the company was then able to estimate that each store locator click was worth $3.20. By accounting for store locator clicks, adidas found that mobile was actually driving a strong 1.8 to 1 ROI.53

Progrexion

Progrexion and its consumer brands, such as LexingtonLaw.com and CreditRepair.com, comprise the nation’s largest consumer advocacy network. Over the past three years, the company has added mobile marketing to the traditional desktop mix. Although promising, mobile marketing presented an attribution challenge and required that the company think about where mobile fit into the sales process to better understand its impact and thus how much to re-invest in mobile. The cost per lead on mobile was lower than desktop and these leads were 30-40% less likely to convert. Realizing that mobile users weren't able to consume content as easily as desktop users and had more questions when they called in, the company tweaked mobile ad copy and routed calls from mobile straight to salespeople who were experts at educating potential customers on the complexities of credit repair and Progrexion’s offerings.

The results, after considering the full value of mobile, were impressive. Overall, mobile sales grew 221% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2013. Mobile now constitutes 15.2% of total sales, up from 6.3% for the same period last year. Mobile attribution, specifically the role mobile plays in the sales process, is now clearer and more impressive. More than 33% of calls placed via mobile reached a sales agent, and more than 33% of those led to sales. The average order value (AOV) was on par with desktop leads. This means that for an hypothetical AOV of $100, a lead from click-to-call was worth $11.54

Extra Space Storage

Many advertisers are unaware of the value mobile calls are driving for their businesses. In fact, on average, when advertisers use calls as conversions, the number of overall conversions reported in AdWords increases by 150%. When calls are reported as conversions, the reporting feature is able to uncover conversions that were previously invisible. After adding a call feature to its mobile search ads, Extra Space Storage saw call conversions increase to account for 90% of mobile conversions.55

Today, Extra Space Storage considers a phone call the primary conversion goal of its mobile search campaigns. Call tracking has allowed the team to not only better measure, but also optimize around calls, matching phone sales back to the original ad click and even passing on contextual information to sales reps such as the keyword that triggered a call.

Fab.com

Fab connects users with designers from around the world to discover everyday design products at great prices. Fab gets more than 40% of its daily visits from its apps, and has found that app users are some of the most engaged customers on the site, purchasing 3x more often, and in larger quantities than web-only customers.56 The results underscore the importance of measuring app downloads and assigning value to them. Advertisers can do this by analyzing app user behavior and using metrics like average visits per app download and number of in-app purchases per app download.

For ideas on attributing value across different kinds of mobile conversions, check out the resources and tools related to Google’s Full Value of Mobile initiative. You’ll find case studies, measurement tips, and a step-by-step calculator that can help you get started with estimating mobile’s true value to your business. The site also includes information on Google measurement tools that allow you to build these new conversion types into your attribution model.

Mobile for brand building

The mobile audience has reached scale. While time spent browsing the desktop web and watching television has held mostly constant over the previous two years, time spent on mobile has nearly doubled. Today, the average consumer spends 127 minutes per day in mobile apps.57 This figure will increase as consumers continue to “cut the cord” in record numbers, trading in cable subscriptions in favor of online offerings.

Today, the average consumer spends 127 minutes per day in mobile apps.

We’re seeing the trend firsthand. One billion YouTube videos are viewed from smartphones around the world every day, with mobile growing its share of total views from 10% two years ago to 25% today. Mobile’s growth is even more pronounced in other markets, with mobile as a percentage of total views growing from 20% to 40% in the US and from 10% to 50% in Japan during that same two-year time period. Yet the gap between mobile ad spend versus time spent, although shrinking, is still imbalanced, at 3% compared to 12%.12

Capturing all this new opportunity means exploring rich media—and now is the time to do it. Sophisticated browsers, faster mobile processors, better touch screens, accelerometers which enables better animated media, and targeting that lets you reach the right users on their most personal devices are turning mobile into a branding wonderland. Today, creative authoring tools for HTML5 and modular rich media formats make it easier for brands to build compelling experiences in mobile.

Quaker's interactive 'Fuel Finder' experience designed for mobile

Here are examples of brands that used modular HTML5 formats from Google to quickly and easily build strong brand experiences in mobile.

BUILDING BRANDS IN MOBILE

building brands in mobile

CLICK TO SEE EXAMPLES BYExpress, Lexus, US Cellular, BMWi, Quaker

Express

Express headlined its Fall 2012 digital marketing campaign with rich media ads on smartphones and tablets. The strategy was to provide an immersive browsing experience that would prompt users to shop online or find the nearest store. Express found that tablet users were 28% more likely to browse products while smartphone users were 61% more likely to check for nearby store locations.58

Lexus

Lexus launched a mobile video campaign to increase brand recognition of its hybrid hatchback, the CT 200h. The 30-second video is a shortened version of a full-length ad available online and effectively packs the energy associated with the Lexus brand onto a smaller screen.

US Cellular

US Cellular linked mobile and tablet banner ads to a store locator tool that used a device’s GPS functionality to help customers find the US Cellular retailer closest to them. Indicators marked each US Cellular location and users could touch each location to get a link to call or map directly to it. At any time, a user could click a “Learn More” button at the bottom of the page to be taken to a landing page on the US Cellular mobile site that features the top three to four deals at the moment.

BMWi

BMWi’s Born Electric campaign allowed users in key focus cities to explore the future of electric vehicles via an augmented reality mobile and tablet driving experience in a BMWi concept car. Users engaged with the creative by driving to selected landmarks in New York, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and London. In New York, for example, these destinations included the Guggenheim Museum, Times Square, and Central Park. BMWi's integration with Street View on Google Maps allowed images of the route to be displayed, starting at the user's actual location, creating a highly personalized experience. The campaign was optimized for both tablets and smartphones to reach the greatest number of users in the target cities.

Quaker

Quaker’s "Fuel Finder" campaign provides moms with a tool to explore foods that help get their families going. First, moms are prompted to choose the type of “fuel” they’d like based on taste (such as sweet) or mood (such as late night craving). Once a taste or mood is selected, users are presented with a recommendation for a Quaker product. If users don't have a particular taste in mind, they can shake their phone to receive a personalized recommendation based on time of day or mood, if they selected one. Quaker found that interactions that are unique to mobile phones, such as shaking the phone or swiping the mood changer, were the actions most frequently taken. Fuel Finder has enjoyed strong engagement and has allowed Quaker to connect with an important audience on-the-go.

Some brands are investing even more in mobile creativity and building deep and custom HTML5 implementations to create memorable and immersive brand experiences.

Google recently launched its “Art, Copy & Code” project as a series of experiments to re-imagine advertising for a connected world. As part of the project, Google worked with innovative brands and their agencies to create compelling campaigns that enabled new forms of brand expression and engagement. Here are two examples of Art, Copy & Code projects that have pushed boundaries of interactive creativity and brand building in mobile.

Burberry Kisses app

Burberry

Burberry Kisses incorporates the most personal human expression, a kiss, expressed in a digitally personal way. From a mobile site or rich media ad, users can send virtual representations of their real kiss, to anyone, anywhere in the world. Users first “kiss” the letter on the screen, create a personal message by choosing a recipient from their Google+ circles, and then send the letter on its way. Burberry Kisses uses Google Maps, Google Earth, and Google Street View to show the journey the letter takes to get from the sender to the recipient. Afterwards, the sender and recipient can share their unique kiss and its journey on all social media channels.

Volkswagen’s SmileDrive is an Android app and web product that lets users share fun moments and experiences from the road with their friends and communities. After signing in with Google+ and pairing the app with their car’s Bluetooth system, users can then record their drives, earning virtual (bumper) stickers when unlocking certain achievements, and virtual “punches” when passing other VW SmileDrive users. At the end of each trip, users can share their Smilecast, an interactive travelogue, with their friends, family, and communities.

Volkswagen SmileDrive Android app

The mobile creative palette

As we’ve shown earlier in this section, advertisers are embracing mobile as part of their brand building efforts. The fact that mobile was a category at Cannes for the first time last year signals that mobile has truly arrived as a creative platform. Let’s take a closer look at what makes mobile so unique as a creative canvas, and how this creates unprecedented ways to engage consumers.

WWF Together iPad app

See how these award-winning campaigns from the 2013 Cannes Lions Festival showcase mobile's unique creative canvas.

The “WWF Together” iPad app features stories of endangered animals that each have their own interactive experience. The app was designed to leverage the hardware and touchscreen features of the iPad. Facts, stories, videos, and images are discoverable using touch and come together to tell a story about each animal. For example, you can swipe sea ice to reveal facts about certain animals and access the device's camera to simulate tiger vision.

Adidas NEO

Adidas brings window shopping to a new level at its Neo store in Nürnberg, Germany. By visiting a URL and typing in a one-time PIN on their smartphones, shoppers can connect their digital devices with a fully-functioning interactive digital store window. The window features life-size products you can drag to your smartphone in order to view product details, save products for immediate or later purchase, or share with friends through social media or email.

Sunshine Aquarium

Tokyo’s 35-year old Sunshine Aquarium wanted to remind residents that it was worth a visit, and came up with a unique idea to encourage people to walk the 1 kilometer distance between it and the nearest subway stop. The idea was the “Penguin Navi” app, an augmented reality GPS experience, which allows realistic virtual penguins to guide visitors to the aquarium. The app resulted in a 152% increase in attendance in just one month with no changes in programming or exhibits.

Mastercard Myamo

MasterCard wanted to increase engagement among its youngest cardholders. The company knew that this demographic was passionate about music and social media, and used its knowledge as a sponsor of concerts and festivals to launch the “Miyamo” app. Miyamo transforms a user’s iTunes library into a social experience. Miyamo analyzes the tracks in users’ libraries and creates a unique visual ID for each user. Through Miyamo’s integration with popular social networks, users can share, comment on, and discover new music. Users’ unique ID changes with music tastes.

Guidelines for mobile branding ads

While we encourage advertisers to push the limits of branded experiences in mobile, whether it’s a mobile site or app, brand owners should be mindful to activate these experiences through mobile advertising to ensure that they drive enough reach and awareness of these innovative touchpoints. Below are some creative guidelines on building a compelling branding ad in mobile.

Branded experiences are great, but what goes into an effective mobile branding ad? It starts with understanding what creative elements are available at your disposal. Let’s examine the anatomy of an ad, and break down how these different elements can amplify your brand message in mobile.

Simple Interface

The best performing mobile creatives are those with intuitive and clean interfaces.

Touch

Mobile is really the only medium where people can actually touch your brand and engage with your message. Take advantage of mobile’s touch interface by incorporating basic gestures like swiping, tapping, and thumb scrolling to navigate your creative.

Location

Mobile is also unique in that it provides a real bridge between your consumer and the physical world.

60% of mobile users use their devices for daily social network activities.13 Mobile creatives that feature a social element can amplify your brand as engaged consumers share and spread your brand message.

Video

1 out of 4 mobile users consume video content daily.13 Video moves users through your message in a highly controlled way, delivering a moment of powerful interaction and then allowing a user to move on. For brands looking to build campaigns that will grab users’ attention, grow the brand, and engage and inform consumers, video is often the easiest way to do so. It is also the only ad format that can move easily across different mediums such as TV, desktop, and mobile. With slight modifications to duration, TV commercials can be adapted to mobile, making it possible to amplify the reach of your campaigns without creating additional content.

Animation

HTML5 creatives in mobile can now enable more organic animations that can bring your brand message to life in ways that weren’t possible with traditional frame-by-frame animations. Use HTML5 animations to punctuate key highlights in your brand message.

Experimentation beyond scalable rich media makes sense...

...as long as you have a well-thought-out strategy as a foundation. A number of companies have asked us about augmented reality or location-based check-in ads. Johnson & Johnson brought Muppets to life on Band-Aids with an augmented reality mobile app that helps parents entertain away the pain for their child. In our experience, though, only a handful of brands have covered the main pillars of a mobile strategy enough to warrant investment in experimental, lower-reach activities.

Press the play button to see the band aid video

As you create branded experiences in mobile, use mobile advertising to promote these and maximize your search.

Measurement matters in mobile branding

New contextual signals on mobile (location, proximity, time of day, and others) have not only created new ways to connect with customers, but also an abundance of information that can guide optimization and ad spend. Ideally, your tracking solution will go beyond comparing mobile to other platforms, to also identify the signals associated with your unique target audience. Effective measurement will allow you to determine ROI and discover new audiences and insights.

Device IDs are playing an important role in this process, helping to unify reporting across apps and the web. Some tracking solutions can now leverage device IDs across different networks and devices to give a unified and unbiased perspective on mobile campaigns collectively. Device IDs that comply with industry standards, such as Apple’s IDFA, will also be more privacy friendly—offering users anonymity as well as the option to opt out. As a result, tracking, targeting, and remarketing is growing increasingly sophisticated in mobile brand campaigns.

Consumers experience media on a variety of screens. How will you go multi-screen?

Chapter 05

How can we connect with multi-screen audiences?

With the rise of smartphone and tablet ownership, it’s not surprising that we’re seeing a surge in multi-screening behaviors. Ninety percent of consumers move sequentially between one device to another to complete a task whether it be shopping, planning a trip, or browsing content. And simultaneous multi-screening is already the norm in living rooms with nearly 40% of smartphone users watching TV while browsing their smartphones on a daily basis.59

Simultaneous multi-screening is already the norm in living rooms with nearly 40% of smartphone users watching TV while browsing their smartphones on a daily basis.

What’s more, mobile typically sparks or sustains these multi-device sessions as it is the device closest to the consumer at any given time. Sixty-five percent of multi-screen consumers report that they began their shopping process from a smartphone. Eighty-four percent of all multi-screen shopping experiences included mobile either as the first or second interaction.

Marketers are keying in on multi-screening behaviors, and some have actually begun to feature mobile use cases in TV ads hoping that consumers will check out their mobile offerings as they see the ad. Priceline’s recent “Breakout” ad, for example, featured the Priceline Negotiators using the Priceline mobile app to book a hotel and escape from Siberia.60 “Playing up mobile during a TV ad should be a no-brainer move for most companies,” says Mike DiMarco, Director of Media at FiddleFly, a digital creative agency. “More than 65% of people who watch TV do so while also using their smartphones or tablets, so giving them an advertisement that highlights a product they already have in their hands can be a home run,” he said.61

Results of local searches

90

of consumers move between devices to complete a task59

40

of smartphone users watch TV while browsing their smartphone59

65

of multi-screen consumers report that they begun their shopping process from a smartphone60

84

of all multi-screen shopping experiences included mobile either as the first of second interaction60

Multi-screen branding campaigns

As your audience is increasingly splitting time between screens, brand campaigns that span multiple screens are able to achieve reach and frequency unparalleled by single screen campaigns.

Press the Play Button to watch a video about Delta's multi-screen experience

Here are some examples of people and companies who are maximizing the impact of their brand campaigns using multiple screens.

BRANDING ACROSS SCREENS

branding across screens

CLICK TO SEE EXAMPLES BYDelta, Samsung, Chevy, Coca-Cola, Land Rover

Delta

Earlier this year, Delta unveiled “Fly Delta”, a comprehensive multi-screen experience that spans smartphones, tablets and Delta kiosks. Fly Delta guides travelers through their journey every step of the way. The company uses a traveler’s device of choice as a context indicator to determine which content to show to travelers at a given time.

Knowing every great trip begins with inspiration, Delta’s iPad app enables consumers to browse location guides for 150 cities around the world and see associated fare specials. Once at the airport, travelers can check-in with their boarding pass from their smartphone and receive alerts for gate and departure time changes. Kiosks were considered as part of the multi-screen experience, where a streamlined design helps to reduce check-in times by 15%. When it’s finally time to fly, travelers can use their tablets for inflight entertainment, and can read books, listen to music, and watch movies themed around their upcoming destination. They can also use the innovative “glass bottom” viewing experience to follow the path of their flight, view photos, and read notes on points of interest.62

In the first week of the app’s launch, Fly Delta had more than 100,000 downloads. It was ranked as the #1 travel app in the iTunes App Store, and was named as both the Gizmodo App of the Day and FWA Mobile App of the Day. The new Delta apps are already responsible for over 11% of digital revenue, and they have improved perceptions about the airline too. Since launching its apps, Delta climbed from #9 in the Wall Street Journal’s airline rankings all the way to #1.62

Samsung

Jay-Z announced his new album, Magna Carta Holy Grail, with a number of high-profile TV ad spots including one during Game 5 of the NBA Finals. The hip hop artist worked with Samsung to pre-release one million copies of his new album to Samsung Galaxy holders over a week before the official album launch. In order to take advantage of the pre-release, fans were required to download the album’s new app on a Samsung Galaxy smartphone or tablet. When these consumers launched their apps on the pre-release date, they could see whether they were one of the lucky one million chosen to receive the album for free. After the Samsung Galaxy launch, Jay-Z and Samsung added a number of clips about the album to YouTube, so that fans could learn the stories behind the songs. Samsung spent $5 million to buy the copies of the album, but garnered well above that amount in press with over 300 articles written within a day of the campaign announcement.63

Chevy

Chevy wanted to promote its new Chevy Sonic to Millennials. In order to keep this younger generation of drivers engaged, the company created a memorable campaign showing cars doing numerous “firsts” including skydiving and bungee jumping. Knowing that Millennials watch television both on TV sets and online, Chevy also offered extended three to four minute versions of the videos on YouTube. These videos were also repackaged and distributed as online video ads. The campaign used YouTube TrueView ad formats, which only count those impressions where a viewer has completed watching the ad, allowing Chevy to make a more accountable branding buy. The “Skydive” video ad alone, which was targeted against Red Bull’s “Stratos” video, led to almost 10 million impressions, more than 80,000 clicks, and a 93% video completion rate. The campaign was so successful that a Super Bowl ad was later produced.64

Coca Cola

Coca-Cola wanted to give teens not just one, but many reasons to choose Coke for their next beverage. Coke faced teens’ shorter attention spans and skepticism of advertising head on by creating a campaign that featured a number of fun and sometimes random activities to keep them engaged. After identifying a product truth—that every sip of Coca-Cola brings an indescribable feeling of happiness, refreshment, and high-fives, all rolled into one word: “Ahh,” Coke bought up every “Ahh”-related domain name from ahh.com all the way up to ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.com, and used these sites as homes for unique bits of content ranging from funny, to random, to customizable, to competitive. These whimsical microsites were optimized for computer, tablet, and mobile viewing. Coke promoted the campaign across multiple screens and non-traditional banners on teen sites exceeded benchmarks by 300%. Since launch, the site has had nearly five million visits, with an average of two minutes spent on each site — 13 times higher than the average teen attention span.65

Land Rover

For the digital launch of the 2013 Land Rover, the company sought to reach consumers on multiple devices and digital destinations. Land Rover built initial familiarity with immersive, video-rich takeover ads on YouTube’s desktop and mobile homepages that allowed viewers to “explore the next generation Land Rover” on their desktop or mobile device. The ads achieved over 97 million impressions.66 Next, the company built a display campaign that would increase the frequency with which an interested consumer would see an ad. The campaign remarketed additional compelling content to its most engaged YouTube users across major digital destinations. The content had an authentic feel as it was created in partnership with YouTube influencer Peter Bragiel, whose adventurous spirit personified the brand. The campaign successfully drove deeper brand engagement by extending its reach beyond desktop, and paying close attention to frequency of impressions.

Multi-screen performance marketing campaigns

Advertisers are thinking multi-screen not only within brand campaigns but also with performance-based campaigns.

M&M’S snack-sized pieces of chocolate in a candy shell are instantly recognizable all over the globe. In 2004, M&M’S launched MY M&M’S, an online service that enables customers to print their own personalized message, logo, or photo on the shells of M&M’S candies. An important key to the success of MY M&M’S is a multi-screen marketing strategy that includes both search and display advertising.

MY M&M’S is using Google AdWords as a way to expand its multi-screen strategy. The company is using bid adjustment tools to optimize its pay-per-click campaigns across search and display on all devices. For example, the company has been able to increase bids across all screens in locations such as Las Vegas, New York City, and near Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, all places where MY M&M’S are exceptionally popular. Since optimizing their bids around location across all devices, revenue from M&M’S search and display campaigns increased 22%, resulting in a 31% boost in ROI.67

American Apparel

American Apparel is known for its passion for and innovation in selling fashion basics like sweatshirts, jackets, dresses, and socks. The company designs and manufactures clothing in downtown Los Angeles and distributes to 250 stores worldwide. With 67% of users starting to shop on one device and continuing on another, it became a top priority for the marketing team to reach its core audience of 18 to 34 year-olds across all screens.

The company not only focuses on mobile commerce, but also other types of conversions, such as driving in-store traffic. Sean Singleton, Marketing Manager for American Apparel explains, “We want to exploit online marketing to drive offline store traffic.” The company used AdWords location bid adjustment feature to bid higher for searches happening near their stores, whether the search was conducted from a smartphone, computer, or tablet. As a result, American Apparel boosted its overall click-through rates by 7% and doubled its mobile conversions.68 “We are going from trial to fine-tuning the way we execute our multi-device marketing strategy,” says Singleton.

Woodbridge

Woodbridge Structured Funding is a pioneer in the financial services industry, and its core mission is to educate clients on their financial options around selling future payments. Seeking to stay ahead of the curve, Woodbridge used AdWords to expand its multi-screen marketing campaigns.

“We’ve seen leads from smartphones grow from 0% to 30% over the last two years for Woodbridge and many other clients,” says Michael Candullo, Co-founder and President of Path Interactive, the agency that worked closely with Woodbridge to launch its multi-screen campaigns. Key to Woodbridge’s success has been the ability to fine-tune its search marketing between different contexts. By optimizing and adjusting bids on smartphones specifically, Woodbridge increased calls from from 20% to 57%, with leads coming from smartphones almost doubling. Additional optimizations across computers and tablets also helped to lift overall conversion rates by 6%.69

Google AdWords bid adjustment features help you reach potential customers more easily and effectively in the multi-screen world. Bid adjustments allow you to adjust search bids by device, location, and time of day in order to present the most relevant message possible to a user given his or her context.

We’ve observed that companies that first consider how, when, and where their customers are looking for their businesses online see the most benefit from bid adjustment. For example, a chain of coffee shops that notices business peaks between the hours of 11am and 2pm may increase bids for searches related to their business during this time and also happening within a one mile radius around their shops. By doing so, the company will reach individuals on their desktop in the nearby office park ready for a mid-afternoon coffee break, as well as the busy mother on her mobile device running errands in the shopping center next door.

84% of multi-screen experiences involve smartphones, and most of these interactions start with them. Marketers now need to see mobile as the first screen when it comes to integrated, multi-screen campaigns.

06. Action Items

Action Items

We brought you the second edition of The Mobile Playbook in an effort to close the knowing-doing gap around mobile. At Google, we believe that constant connectivity represents a sociological shift in how users relate with both the digital and physical world. Businesses that understand this will win. To help you get started, we’ve summarized the action items from the playbook.

Focus your value proposition so it meets true mobile-specific needs

Identify what mobile consumers need the most when they interact with your business. Focus your value proposition around those essential, mobile-centric use cases.

Create mobile-first, not desktop-lite, destinations

Your #1 priority is to build a mobile-optimized website which you should optimize over time. Consider building an app for your loyal customers especially if it provides compelling utility.

Build mobile accountability into your organization

Assign a Mobile Champion in your company and empower him or her with a cross-functional task force. Centralize mobile accountability if mobile is an emerging but fast growing segment of your business. Distribute mobile accountability as mobile becomes a core segment of your business.

Drive ROI and branding in mobile-specific ways

Use contextual signals of location, proximity, and time of day to refine your mobile search marketing.

Don’t under-count mobile; go beyond e-commerce conversions on your site and attribute the full value that mobile is driving to other channels, like physical stores, call centers and apps.

84% of multi-screen experiences involve smartphones, and most of these interactions start with them. Marketers now need to see mobile as the first screen when it comes to integrated, multi-screen campaigns.